


Quiet and Warm and Soft

by LikeABrokenClock



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Barisi - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7585849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeABrokenClock/pseuds/LikeABrokenClock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafael's not sure how his plans for a nice afternoon nap turned into a pseudo-interrogation.  But then, he never knows what to expect when it comes to Carisi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet and Warm and Soft

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the characters. I also do all my own editing, so if something is wrong, please let me know (kindly) so I can fix it.

“What’s your favorite color?”

 

Rafael frowns as the question pulls him back from the warm, hazy edge of almost-sleep. “Go to sleep, Carisi,” he mumbles, pulling the comforter tighter around himself—and consequently away from his bedmate. Serves him right for disrupting what was going to be a perfectly wonderful afternoon nap. Anyway, it’s Rafael’s comforter in the first place.

 

“Hey, no. C’mon,” Carisi urges. Rafael can feel his breath warm against the back of his neck with each word.

 

“Go. To sleep,” Rafael says through gritted teeth, eyes resolutely closed.

 

Carisi doesn’t give up easily. Rafael really should know this by now. It _is_ that tenacity that landed the detective in his bed in the first place. “Is it pink? I bet it’s pink.”

 

“If you’re not going to sleep, fine. But shut up and let _me_ sleep.”

 

“What’s the big deal? It’s just a question.”

 

“It’s a stupid question. And you don’t care.”

 

Carisi’s fingers stop tracing slow patterns on Rafael’s hip. “Whoa. No. Of course I— What makes you say that?” Carisi says. He sounds… hurt, offended, confused maybe. Rafael sure as hell isn’t going to turn over and search his face for clues.

 

“Because. I know why you’re here. You don’t need to pretend this is about anything but sex,” Rafael says. He’s regretting not kicking Carisi out immediately after they were done.

 

“What?” Sonny actually sounds shocked. “I’m not pretendin’ nothin’.”

 

“Double negative.”

 

“Stop. Be serious a minute. Is that really what you think?”

 

“Of course that’s what I think. I have been nothing but serious.”

 

“Yeah, well. So have I,” Carisi says, determined. Rafael can practically picture the way his brows are furrowed. The hand on his hip tightens its grip, possessively. It’s like Carisi is afraid he’s about to bolt from his own bedroom. “Sex… that’s not what this is about. I could take it or leave it. I mean…

 

“Well, that’s a bit over the top. ‘Cause the sex… it’s _wow_. But you know what? It’s wow because it’s with you.”

 

Usually, Rafael would have some witty remark about Carisi’s appraisal of his bedroom skills. He would at least take the time to be mildly offended by the “take it or leave it”, even given Carisi’s immediate self-correction. Now though, he’s barely breathing. He digs his fingers into his sheets, his comforter, trying to ground himself, trying for comfort. He fails on both counts.

 

“Why else would you be here? Oh. I forgot about your little law hobby,” Rafael says. He’s aiming for cutting, but lands nearer to the plastic knife of sarcastic taunting. He’s counting on Carisi taking offense at the worn out jab. Maybe he’ll leave.

 

“I’m not gonna deny I’ve learned a ton from you,” Carisi admits instead. “But come on. I don’t have a career to advance here. And anyway, I have professors to teach me ‘bout the law. Professors who don’t cut me down every time I open my mouth.”

 

Rafael winces. He deserved that one, though, even if he has made the effort to reduce his harsher remarks. Still, Carisi doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. If anything, he’s tangled their bare legs tighter together.

 

“Carisi. Why are you here?” Rafael asks, words thick and slow on his tongue. Suddenly, he’s tired. Not the soft, hazy, post-sex, a-nap-would-be-nice kind of tired he had been moments ago, but bone deep, mind numb exhausted. “What do you want?”

 

“I want to get to know you, Barba,” Carisi replies, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Rafael almost wants to laugh.

 

“You _do_ know me,” he says flatly, instead.

 

“No, I don’t. Not _really_.”

 

“Carisi. We work together. You know me, because you know the law. My job, the law? That’s my life. That’s all there is to know.”

 

“I don’t think so. See, the law wouldn’t have a favorite color. It doesn’t pick the tomatoes off of its sandwiches every time, either. And it doesn’t keep a copy of the Hamilton soundtrack in its car or live on coffee and take-out or make a point to read all the classics. It doesn’t own enough outfits to go a whole friggin’ year without repeating once or give out backhanded compliments like they’re goin’ out of style.”

 

Rafael just lies there, frozen. Maybe sleeping with a detective was a mistake.

 

“I’m not sayin’ I need to know every little thing about you. Everyone’s gotta have their secrets,” Carisi says. His voice is eerily soothing in its nonchalance, like a verbal shrug. “But come on. Give yourself some credit. You’re more than just what you do. You’re worth gettin’ to know.”

 

“You say that now,” Rafael murmurs into his pillow, barely audible.

 

“Yeah. And I’ll keep sayin’ it, ‘til you prove me otherwise,” Carisi says. He’s moved his face closer to Rafael, and the lawyer can feel him frown against his neck. “Don’t take that as a challenge.”

 

Rafael wants to tell Carisi he’s not going to. It’s inevitable, really, that Carisi will discover his character to be lacking and leave. Rafael doesn’t need to hasten his own impending demise. Still, that would be admitting to… something. He keeps his mouth shut.

 

“I know you started this with me because I’m easy,” Carisi admits. “You knew I would say yes. Especially if it was you askin’. I don’t say no a lot. I don’t like disappointing people—you got that right.

 

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m a total pushover. Some things are worth fightin’ for. And for what it’s worth, I really think this is one. I need you to know that I’m not just in this _for_ you. I’m in this _with_ you.”

 

Rafael can’t remember the last time he was with someone who wanted more from him than his body. It not like it was ever a surprise. His ostentatious manner of dress was, and is, carefully designed to draw the eye to his better selling points. Namely his figure, because if his looks were enough to draw them in, his wit and charm were, almost without exception, enough to seal the deal.

 

All is fair in love and war, and he’d wanted nothing more from any of them than their own bodies in return. It was practically contractual: fun, pleasure, skin, sin. Done and easy, with no hurt feelings, no feelings at all.

 

And yet here is Carisi in his bed, soft and warm and long and lean, pressed right up against him with barely space for breath, and sex is the farthest thing from Rafael’s mind. The other man’s words are slowly making themselves at home in his head and maybe his heart, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. It’s easier to focus on the thumb gently brushing back and forth across his hipbone, the tiny kisses pressed to the juncture of his neck and shoulder at intermittent intervals without a care where they’ll lead, the heartbeat steady and sure against his back, the foot just barely twitching against his because Carisi is trying so hard to be still.

 

Carisi seems to take his silence as a dismissal. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this never meant anythin’ to you. But it means somethin’ to me. So yeah, I want to know your favorite color and… and, gee, I don’t know, all the other little things that make you _you_. I want more.”

 

“I want to sleep,” Rafael says.

 

Carisi’s no longer pressing up against him. He’s struggling to disentangle their legs. Rafael clamps his together, trapping Carisi’s shin between them. “Where are you going?” Rafael asks.

 

“I’m leavin’ so you can have your fuckin’ nap,” Carisi hisses, anger betraying his hurt.

 

Rafael flips himself over, catching Carisi’s wrist in his hand. He takes in Carisi’s wounded expression, the glassy quality to his blue eyes that bespeaks tears, the way he’s still feebly trying to pry his leg from between Rafael’s. “Let me finish.”

 

“But—”

 

“No. I wasn’t done,” Rafael insists. He eyes Carisi until it seems the fight has gone out of the other man. “I’m going to sleep because that’s what Sundays are for, and you’re the reason I’m tired. You’re going to be quiet and warm and soft and _let_ me sleep. And you’re going to stay here because—for some unknown reason—I like you.

 

“When I wake up, we’re going to go to that new Thai place you were telling me about. Once there, you can ask me whatever inane questions your heart desires, and I will do my best to answer them and perhaps ask some of my own. And if, after all of that, you would still like to come back here and stay the night, it can likely be arranged.”

 

Rafael releases his death grip on Carisi’s limbs. If Carisi still wants to leave, he won’t try to stop him. He’s said all that he can say.

 

And apparently, it was the right thing to say because Carisi is immediately twining their bodies back together, even closer than before. He spreads one impossibly large hand across the span of skin between Rafael’s shoulder blades, tucks his leg more firmly between Rafael’s, and presses a gentle kiss to Rafael’s forehead. He is quiet and warm and soft.

 

“It’s blue,” Rafael murmurs, half-asleep. Carisi’s eyes fly open, blue meeting green.

 

“What?” Carisi asks, but his lips are already curved up in the beginnings of a smile.

 

“Blue,” repeats Rafael. “I’m rather fond of it.”

 

Carisi is grinning full on now, pale blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “You sure it’s not pink?”

 

Rafael tucks his face firmly into the soft skin of Carisi’s neck. “Very. Go to sleep, Carisi,” he mutters. He’s smiling, softly, though as he finally drifts off.


End file.
